It feels all too real when he sleeps, though. The dreams are in technicolour with the volume cranked up to maximum. Tyres squealing. Acrid burning smell of rubber through his open window. The girl hitting the car like a bass drum. The taste of bile in his throat. He hasn’t managed more than a few hours’ sleep a night since it happened. Every time he sinks towards deep slumber, the dream slaps him awake. Maybe this is his penance? To be slowly chipped away at. To become so exhausted that he can’t get out of bed or sleep. Stuck in his own version of purgatory.

He has vowed to never play another hand of cards again. Locke has promised his slate is wiped clean, but George was a fool to trust him. The envelope addressed to him that arrived today at the station is postmarked London. That tells him nothing. The list of names inside were already known to him; some of the most notorious drug dealers in the capital. Almost all of them. What wasn’t known were the times and dates next to each. New shipments coming in. Addresses they’ll be stored at.

Despite what happened three weeks ago, he’s still a copper, and a good one at that. Knows what he should do with this information. Arrests like these would propel him up the ranks. They would also leave a gap in the market. A gap that a man like Alexander Locke would be well placed to exploit. Using this would make him Faust to Locke’s Mephistopheles.

George weighs up the pros and cons. Decides that he needs some quick wins to atone for what he has done. He can deal with Locke later. He promises himself he’ll get out from under this. That it was all a matter of circumstance and bad timing. Tells himself he’s still a good person. That he hasn’t sold out. He almost manages to convince himself that’s true. Almost.

EPILOGUE

There was something infinitely sad about a badly attended funeral, one where you could count the mourners on one hand. Sadder still when that count included the priest. Even a chapel full of snivelling relatives would be better than this, Porter thought. It seemed almost cruel to bury Natasha a second time, so soon after she’d just been found, but at least this time was the real deal, not discarded in the woods like a piece of buried rubbish. A stiff breeze teased stray hairs from his forehead, sneaking its icy fingers down his shirt collar. He buttoned his coat right up to the neck and sunk his chin into the polo-neck-style ruff it made.